The Dust
by SimpleTechnicality
Summary: They are as dust beneath the feet of a silent god.
1. The Illegitimate Sons of Men

He's sitting in his shack, staring at a gun.

It's in pieces, spread out before him on a tarp he's put down on the floor. Without even touching it he can tell what the reconstructed product will be: Arcus, one of their auto-rifles, illegally modified with what he can only assume is some sort of Fallen tech. Nothing too eye-catching, just something clamped onto where the magazine should be. He had no idea what it was, that was not for him to know, but whatever it was a Guardian would surely be glad to have it.

Again, though, it's very illegal. The men and women of the Tower can walk around with such things as they please, but down here in the city proper most all firearms were expressly forbidden. Especially firearms modified with unsupervised alien tech. Not that he'd face much repercussion if he were caught. That those of his trade operated with the Wall was something of an accepted secret. The Consensus never lifted the old restrictions but, at the same time, provided no means for those restrictions to be enforced. He had friends who claimed that was tacit approval from the Consensus itself, that their profession was now permitted. They said that a new dawn had arrived.

Lan-79 was too old to believe that. He remembered the bad old days, before the Consensus and the Tower. When the city was still young, when a dozen separate factions, each more broken and desperate than the last, claimed the right to rule. He remembered the infighting, the hunts and the lynching and the friends who'd vanished without a trace.

He was old enough to know that the times always change. What was tacit approval to some was to him noncommittal political maneuvering. Sure, the Consensus might not have passed any method of enforcement, but the option was still open if, at some point down the line, they needed it. The good times never last, despite what everyone wants to believe. His trade served a purpose at present, an important purpose. For the moment the benefits of toleration outweighed the cost. But who could say what things could be like, a few decades down the road?

Lan-79 hadn't seen any of _those_ friends in a long while. He thought it best to cut ties while he could. He'd hear about them now and again though, about how they'd gone as far as to operate openly. Letting whole communities know who they were and what they did. Letting them know where to go to sell a gun. Or buy one.

To be fair, most of them were human. They didn't have to worry _too_ much about the repercussion of their actions because they'd all be dead before long. Lan-79, however, had the future to consider. Where others began to branch out he downsized. Where others operated openly, becoming known figures in their communities, he retreated further into the shadows. Many derided him for his caution. Many, and not a single exo among them. His kind understood.

The times were always changing.

Ccc

At some point the gun was assembled.

He was sitting there, lost in the jumbled, scattered neurological activity he passed off for thought, and somehow his work was finished. That happened sometimes, when he wasn't paying attention. His hands would act on old memories, old instincts his conscious mind was no longer privy to, and suddenly some task or chore would be done.

It didn't used to happen all that often. But then, his work didn't give him the same kind of satisfaction that it used too. When he first discovered his talent with firearms he'd been elated. It was like finding a long lost part of himself, of who he used to be. He felt certain that before, long, long before, he'd been engaged in similar work. He could _feel_ it.

That certainty faded. The years began to drag. His human friends kept dying off, familiar faces vanishing in the blink of an eye, replaced by an ever growing stream of strangers. Exos, incapable of replacing lost numbers, found themselves fewer and fewer each century. Buildings were torn down and rebuilt, streets changed, and still Lan-79 received no revelations. No lost memories of forgotten purpose. Just time, flying by, stealing away everything it passed. It's moments like that, when the weight of a century bears down on him and he realizes he can't remember what it was like to walk without a limp that he envies humans.

He can hear them through the walls. Layers of cloth and thin sheet metal do little to block out the sounds. People on the streets, in the hovels adjoining his, eating and sleeping and defecating and fucking and a dozen other time consuming bodily functions. At least it gives them something to do.

Now he sits and waits. Dust has gathered on his legs, crossed beneath him, immobile for perhaps a little too long. He wonders who will come for the gun.

Maybe it will be the boy. A young human with the mark of the Cult branded on his wrist. He will set it on its way to the dark recesses of the tower, where Lakshmi-2 eagerly awaits. Or maybe the woman, the Awoken whore who will put the gun one step closer to Banshee-44, the greatest of his trade, sitting high on his perch in the very same Tower.

Both rest at the end of a long and complex chain, a ceaseless flow of weapons from the bowels of the city up, up to the Tower. A chain in which Lan-79 is a small but vital link.

Ccc

He's lying on the mattress now. He doesn't remember moving. But it must have happened at some point. He turns his head to look at the room. It's empty, void of everything except a filthy tarp draped across the center of the floor. The gun is still there. No one's come to pick it up yet. He turns his eyes back up to the ceiling.

No lights coming in through any of the cracks. Must be nighttime.

He used to just lie on the floor, but then someone gave him the mattress as a gift, and it made him feel guilty not to use it.

He doesn't actually sleep. Doesn't need to, or at least he doesn't think he does. But he will dream every now and then.

Sometimes he sees flashes of what he assumes are the remnants of memories from before, scattered impressions of feelings and senses. Anger, fear, rage. The scent of burning metal. Smoke, wafting across a foreign, forgotten world. Not real, full memories. Just tantalizing scraps of what he once was. What they all once were.

Most times he relives a more recent past.

His first real memories are of war.

Ccc

Before he'd even fully come to they were already strapping plates of armor to his body, getting ready to throw him a few hundred thousand others into the slaughter.

It had been a slow process, being reactivated. It took a little while for all the major cognitive functions to come back into play. Kind of like growing up for humans, only in the space of minutes. He been told after the fact that there was protocol they were supposed to follow, a strict procedure used when waking up exos. They had to be acclimatized to being brought back to life with all their memories wiped, at the cusp of their maker's ultimate downfall. It took a few days, usually. There was a lot of talking, a lot of counseling involved, or so he had been told.

When the stashed exo army had been unearthed beneath the cosmodrome however, time had been at something of a premium. Fallen were massing an offensive against a Wall still under construction. The Guardians, young and inexperienced, unused to the awesome powers granted to them, had suffered heavy losses. Droves of them, vital to the defense of the burgeoning stronghold, were stranded off-world, access between the core planets falling one after the other. Those few who managed back to Earth before the lines were cut assured the defenders that there wouldn't be any cavalry arriving anytime soon.

So, from their perspective, stumbling across a ready-made army of Golden Age war machines had been something of a small miracle. Before his higher functions had even begun to reactivate Lan-79 had been fitted with a thin covering of plastiplate armor, a predecessor to what was to become Titan fieldplate armor, too heavy even then for a normal human to bear, and handed a rifle.

The mind may have forgotten, but the hands remembered. He'd been told after the fact the he and the other cosmodrome exos wielded their weapons as though with a lifetime of experience.

He was never told, but assumed, that they were herded straight to the Wall.

When he came to, fully came to, he was lying on his side in the mud. A Fallen blade was lodged deep into his now ruined knee, the leg jerking spasmodically while the other tried to find purchase in the slick ground.

Legs were passing through his vision, running. He listened intently to the foreign, familiar sounds of gunfire, the roar of unknown machines, the screams of enraged Fallen and dying exos.

He'd been told after the fact that the offensive had been a phenomenal success. The exo legion had been utterly relentless. They'd pushed the Fallen line back so far that the builders had nearly a full day of uninterrupted peace to go about their work. Losses, of course, were catastrophic. Such progress would be lost in a matter of hours as attrition took its toll, and would not be made again for a long time.

At the time though Lan-79 was unware of all that. He'd ranged far from the wall when he'd been struck down, and his comrades had pushed on ahead, the sounds of battle growing more and more distant. Soon it got quiet. He was left alone, amid a field covered in the broken bodies of his kind. Most were dead, others were dying, and few like him were too incapacitated to get up and move.

He didn't know anything about the enemy they were fighting. About the refugees they were fighting for. About how the defenders at the wall were taking this short respite to shore up their defenses, to prepare from what was sure to be a brutal counterattack. About the incredible boost in morale the success of the exo army had brought. About how, in a matter of hours, said army would buckle under the weight of its losses, and the Fallen would be on the move again.

He was dazed and confused. He knew only that he couldn't move, that he was in pain, that he was dying.

He had no idea who he was.

Then the machines came from the sky.

Ccc

Thousands of them descended onto the battlefield, little spiked flakes of pure white fluttering over corpses. They all seemed to be searching for something, or someone, in particular. Several times Lan-79 was scanned by one big shining blue eye before being passed over.

Not long after, the dead began to rise.

Bodies that had been shorn, blown apart, cut up, were rebuilt in seconds. Some of the reborn, the chosen, continued on, heading towards the advancing, dying army that had left them behind. They were not seen again. Most began the long trek back to the wall, sometimes alone, sometimes with the broken body of a fallen comrade draped across their shoulders.

Lan-79 had been one of those lucky few. A passing exo on his way back to the wall had seen him, and lifted him up, carrying him across his shoulders. Lan-79 wishes he'd had the presence of mind to thank him for his sympathy. A cruel fate awaited those injured but living, as the Fallen crept back up to reclaim lost ground.

As it was he was still too dazed to form coherent thought, much less speech. He never got a name, never saw that exo again. Doesn't even remember arriving back at the wall. All he can recall is being carried, fire burning in his leg with every bounce.

He remembers their face though. Or, rather, the lack of it; a metal plate fell down across their forehead, obscuring everything above the mouth. A splash of red stained that plate, and at the time Lan-79's frazzled brain thought it was blood.

Later he would realize his mistake. It must have just been paint.

Neither Fallen nor exos bleed.

Ccc

A stream of light cuts through the room as the thin metal sheet he passes off as a door is removed. It's the boy. And, curiously enough, he is not alone.

The boy walks in and silently goes about his task, paying no mind to either Lan-79 or his companion. The other, a dark skinned human male, carefully steps into the dimly lit room. His clothes are worn and baggy, draped over his body in countless obscuring, insulating layers. It's a good disguise. But the boots give him away.

Lan-79's keen eyes observe the new, fresh rubber making up the soles. No scuff marks, cracks, shards of glass or any other detritus characteristic of the Basin. Not a local then. Someone more affluent perhaps, who needs to move about the Basin without drawing attention?

They boy picks the newly reconstructed rifle up and wraps it in the tarp it lay on before handing it over to the man. He sticks it inside the folds of his clothing. The boy heads back outside.

Lan-79 is sitting up on his elbows, staring at the man. Normally he and the boy do not interact with one another. There is no need. They know their roles. But until now the boy has always come alone. The man is an unknown quantity. Why is he here?

He steps forward towards Lan-79, drawing something from his coat. For a moment Lan-79 thinks he is about to die, that the War Cult has decided to off him for some reason. There was a time when that would have upset him far more, he reflects.

As it is the man is apparently not there to kill him. Instead he withdraws a small metal cube, holding it out to the exo. Ah, he thinks. A promotion then, of a sort. Lan-79 reaches up and takes the cube from the man, setting it down on the mattress next to him.

The man leaves, replacing the thin sheet of metal over the doorway.

Lan-79 is left alone in the darkness.


	2. Hope You Guessed Their Name

John walked into the bar and immediately felt out of place.

It wasn't like he hadn't tried. He'd managed to scrounge up a half decent suit, trimmed his beard, polished his shoes. Hell, his damn wife had kept him at the fuckin door for like half an hour, fixing his goddamn hair. He probably looked better than he had in his whole life.

But the moment he walked through the doors he knew he didn't belong. A sea of slicked hair and smooth faces spread out before him. He suddenly became keenly aware of all the wrinkles in his jacket. He hadn't thought to iron the damn thing.

He imaged he could feel the gaze of every patron in the building boring into him as he strode towards the counter, eyes wandering up and down the row. It was all in his head he knew, but still. Old anxieties die hard. This was the first time he'd ever been to a place where the booze cost so much, and hopefully it would be the last.

He was here to meet someone and, thank god, he saw them. Sitting over at the very end of the counter, sipping some kind of purple drink out of a dainty little glass.

And with a fucking straw!

At least he wouldn't have to sit around and wait. Not like he could even order a drink in this place, he could barely afford the cheap shit back home. Like hell was he going to shell out a week's worth of glimmer for overpriced prom shit, regardless of what the 'side effects' were. With renewed purpose he made his way across the floor; his friend had yet to notice him.

_He_ looked pretty damn different too. His thick nappy beard was gone, shaved totally off, along with the frizzy dreadlocks. Looked like a totally different person, was even sitting differently. Man would've been unrecognizable if he wasn't still wearing those ridiculous ass boots. Workman's boots, black, shined to a luminescent fucking sheen, and totally out of place worn with his tailored, pressed blue suit. On someone else John would have assumed it was on purpose, so he could be recognized. But John knew better than that.

He was just a dumbass.

John sat down next to him. His friend spoke.

"John."

"Dar."

Darman turned his head to look at John, his eyebrows shooting up as a smile alighted on his face. "Shit, man. Nice suit."

"Fuck you too asshole."

"Just sayin. Not like I didn't give you heads up or nothing."

John endeavored to keep his voice down as Darman, as usual, made his temper flare up.

"You know damn well I don't have money to buy a new fucking suit. If I did I wouldn't be here talking to your sorry fucking ass!"

Darman gave that weird little raspy laugh, like he always did whenever John got worked up. For his part, John found the whole interaction to be kinda relaxing, in a familiar sort of way.

"And besides" John said. "Your one to talk. Look like you got a job at a bank or something. Mike's gonna give you hell tomorrow, showing up all smooth faced like that."

Darman just laughed, absentmindedly rubbing his cheek. "Yeah I know. Believe me, I do. And my hair…"

"All that shit you talked about how you ain't never cutting your dreads? Yeah, you'll be hearing about that for awhile too."

"Took me forever to grow that shit out."

"Look at it this way, now that you don't look homeless maybe you can find another woman. It's been what, three, four years since you and Freya split?"

"Three. And eight months"

"You ain't getting any younger man."

"Don't I know it."

A moment of comfortable silence passed between the two old friends, before Darman sighed and spoke up again.

"Enough beaten around the bush John. I got other meetings tonight."

Suddenly Darman's face went slack, the laughter the vanished from his eyes, and John wasn't sure just who the hell it was he was talking to.

"Why you here, John?"

John's fist clenched.

How fucking dare he ask that question! He knew, he knew damn well!

It was because rent was going up, and wages were staying the same. It was because his batshit wife was too crazy to leave the house, much less hold down a job. Because his kid was still too young to earn, too young to work a garbage crew or a snow team. Because all the sudden fixing up broken lights and Frames didn't pay for shit, even if he was doing it at the motherfucking Tower.

Because, pretty soon, he wasn't going to be able to keep his family in their neighborhood. And there was no way in hell, no fucking way, his son was growing up in the Basin.

John clenched his teeth, his checks going taunt. "You know why I'm here, Darman."

"Say it."

John head snapped around to look at his friend, a hurt expression on his face. Darman's brow furrowed. "I'm not tryin to be cruel here John."

Darman gestured up towards the ceiling. "_They_ need to hear it though. For themselves, from you. Not from me."

Ah.

"Glimmer. I need glimmer Darman. I need it bad."

Darman closed his eyes and nodded. Seconds passed. John felt his heart beating in his chest.

Darman opened his eyes and looked over at his friend. "Good enough, John."

John exhaled heavily out his nose, letting out breath he hadn't realized he was holding.

"So what now then. How does this shit work?"

Darman sighed, pushed the straw in his drink out of the way and downed it in one gulp, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He got the bartenders attention and ordered another, grasping it with callused hands. He took the straw out and set it on the counter next to him.

Immediately every voice was silenced.

John looked around in shock as the constant drone of people died away, every patron stopping mid conversation. They got up, every single damn one of them, and began calmly heading for the door. Everyone was studiously avoiding looking at John and Darman.

John realized his mouth was open, and closed it. Looking around, he saw that the bartender had vanished too. The music died off a second later.

"This, is how it works."

A boy with a shaved head walked in into the room, coming out of a door marked Employees Only. He was young, still a child even. John felt something in him grow cold.

The kid walked towards them, coming to a stop next to Darman. He had a nice leather suitcase in one hand, looking at odds with the raggedy clothes he had on. Closer up, John could see some sort of tattoo on his wrist. A mark. _Their_ mark.

John eyes grew wide as he stared at Darman, who continued to study his drink. "You gonna go with the boy. Follow him outside, there'll be a car waiting. He's got his own shit to do understand? Let him be. Your both headin to the Basin, western quarter, Central. Known territory for you, right?"

John nodded.

"Good. The boys gonna run by a house, and you're gonna go with him. The exo living there's got a box waiting for you, white, about yea big. Your gonna take it to work with you tomorrow. One of the maintenance Frames on B5 will go haywire again, solder through some power cables. You'll be sent down to fix it. An associate of ours will meet you down there to pick it up."

"And when it's done?"

"That's up to you brother. If you want, that'll be the end of it. Wash your hands of the whole fuckin deal. As a gesture of good faith we're getting your glimmer together tonight. It'll be waiting on you when you get back home."

"How much?"

" Enough. Provided you don't all the sudden develop expensive tastes, should keep you and yours living within sight of the Tower for another two years."

"And you said we're done after that, right? I don't ever hear from you about any of this shit ever again?"

Darman turned to look at John, a friendly smile on his face. "If you want, I said. If it's not enough though, or you find yourself burning through your pay faster than expected, well…"

Darman spread his hands in an open gesture. "We always have a little work available."

John watched as Dar picked his drink back up and downed it again in one swig. He then leaned across the counter, plucked the bottle up from the rack, and began promptly pouring himself another. He raised it back to his lips, nursing it through the straw.

John looked around the empty room, then over at the man he thought he knew.

"What the fuck did you get yourself into Dar?"

Darman set his drink down and glanced over at him. "Question is friend, what the fuck _are you_ about to get into?"

John just shook his head and rose from his seat. The boy started moving too, making his way towards the front door. John started to follow before he stopped himself, one hand coming down to rest on the counter. His back to Dar, he asked, "And what after?"

"Hm?"

"When years have passed and the glimmers run out. And my pays still shit. What then?"

Darman smiled. "Then, you'll know who to come to."

Ccc

John stepped out of the car stinking of booze and smoke.

The boy had provided clothes, layers upon layers of thin, stained sweats and old, raggedy jackets and coats. John knew it was just as much a matter of functionality as it was camouflage, his cheeks and ears reddening as soon as he stepped out into the frozen air, the wind making his eyes water. No climate control out here, nothing but sweet Russian cold.

The car drove off as soon as they were both out. John had no idea where he was, the blacked out windows having kept him from getting his bearings on the way over, but the boy seemed to know where to go. Kid made a beeline for the closest alley, John following close behind.

Had it been nighttime John would've been able to orient himself based off the lights and sounds, the nightlife hubs blowing up with both rowdy locals and thrill seeking tourists slumming it. You could see and hear that shit for miles, and John could tell where he was based off it, just like he'd learned to do elsewhere in the city with the Tower. The sun was dead center in the fucking sky however, and the only sounds were muffled music and the footsteps of someone running several blocks away. The kid was his lifeline.

They were apparently pretty deep in however. The street they'd arrived on had been lined with faded brick apartments, the remnants of building projects long abandoned, but the alley immediately opened up into the maze of makeshift hovels that characterized the area. That told John that they were near the ass end of one of the old civic projects, big chunks of real-estate with actual buildings and structures dotting the interior of the Basin. They could still be anywhere, but at least John knew that they were too far to make just walking out an attractive option.

The boy stopped right at the end of the alley and turned to the wall on his right, gripping a man sized sheet of thin metal with both hands. John was about to reach out an help, but the boy pulled the sheet metal away from the wall effortlessly, sliding it aside to rest next to the six foot hole he'd just made.

The boy walked into the darkness, John hesitantly following close behind.

Ccc

He stood in the doorway, the noonday light to his back, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

To orbs of flaming orange light opened up on the far side of the room, wide inhuman eyes regarding his presence. There was a time when that would have had him jumping out of his skin, but he'd worked in enough pitch black basements with enough exo coworkers to be well used to luminescent eyes shining out from the dark.

John heard the squeak of springs as the eyes shifted, rolling and rising as their owner sat up on the old mattress he'd been laying on. By now John could see well enough by the light of the exo's own eyes and mouth to make his way across the room, side stepping the kid as he fiddled with something on the floor. The exo's eyes followed him the whole time. John just stared right back.

He was old, his face pitted with a few choice dents and his bare arms marked by several deep scratches. He wore nothing except a filthy tattered shift that couldn't quite hide, even in the darkness of the room, that one leg was made from a different metal than the rest of his body. The price of immortality, thought John. Time pulled punches for no one.

He came to a stop in front of the exo, expecting that he had his own instructions for when John arrived. Sure enough the exo began rooting around beneath the mattress, extracting a small white cube the size of John's palm. Its polished sheen was practically luminescent, reflecting the harsh orange glow emanating from the exos head.

He heard a tapping sound behind him.

John turned to see the kid standing in the threshold, something bundled up in his arms; he was tapping the wall with his heel, his eyes fixated pointedly on John.

He followed the kid out, taking a second to observe the cube as his companion replaced the metal sheet over the exo's shack. He noticed now, out in the light of day, that it had black lines crossing its top and midsection, as though it could be opened up or segmented.

Curiosity tried to compel him to give it a quick courtesy pull, just to see if it'd open or not. But John knew better than that. He made one last observation, noting that the very tips of each corner were, in contrast to the rest, painted a bright stark yellow. As he did so the boy began to turn around, so John stuck the cube back in his coat. Kid ignored him however, instead heading straight back down the alley towards the street. In the distance, John heard their car approaching.

Ccc

The car stopped again about ten minutes later and the boy got out, taking his bundle with him. He, apparently, had other stops to make.

But John was done, at least for today, and he was happy about it. After changing out of the street clothes the boy had given him and putting back on his ill-fitting suit John leaned back in his seat, letting all the tension that had been building up inside him blow away. He hadn't realized how much he'd been creeped out by that kid until he'd left.

He tilted his head back to close his eyes, trying to ignore the stench from the overstuffed ash tray on the armrest and the empty bottles littering the floor. No point in trying to get his bearing he knew. Between the blacked out windows and the opaque screen separating him and the driver he might has well have been alone in a windowless room.

Might as well lean back and enjoy the silence, he figured. The drive to the Basin hadn't been short. He had hours before they were back in civilization.

Ccc

He opened his eyes with a start, shocked to realize that he'd fallen asleep. Something had awakened him…

Knocking, someone was knocking on the glass in front of him. The driver. Suddenly John realized that they'd stopped. Reaching over he gripped the door handle and pushed it open.

The setting sun illuminated a familiar neighborhood. John's hand traveled to his jacket pocket; the edges of the cube were clearly visible through the fabric. It suddenly seemed a lot heavier than it had before…

He'd need something to stash it in, both for tonight and to sneak it into work tomorrow.

That was for later, though. For now, John was going to go into his house, hug his wife and son, and collapse on his own fucking bed. As he walked up to his house however he saw it, a thin black briefcase sitting right next to his door.

John got down on one knee, took the briefcase in his hands, and opened it.

Blue light illuminated his smiling face.


	3. No Satisfaction

Deep within the bowels of the Tower's hangar sat a small freighter.

It had been abandoned long ago, most of its insides stripped to facilitate repairs on more promising vessels. It was useless to the Tower now, utterly incapable of interplanetary travel, though in the early years there had been talk of repurposing it for in-City transit. These suggestions always came to naught however, the cost of rebuilding the old clunker simply too high. Not when there were fleets of Guardian vessels in need of maintenance and repair.

And so it was tossed into the corner of a storage hanger, along with all the rest of the scrap metal, awaiting the day when the Tower would grow desperate enough to melt it down and harvest what little worth it still had. It sat in that hangar for nearly a hundred years, gathering dust and rust.

And then a Hunter found it, and made it her nest.

Her home away from home she called it, home being the desolate wastes and shifting sands of the red planet. The hard truth of the matter was that the restoration of travel between the interior worlds meant that even those on the very fringes of human space would eventually find themselves needing to, for one reason or another, visit the Tower.

Djan Stykes hated the Tower. It was far too dense, people of all shapes and sizes crammed into tiny rooms and corridors, constantly flitting to and fro to ensure the vast wasteful beast kept on chugging. From oil stained civvies in jumpsuits to fresh suited businessmen and politicians to hulking armored Titans, all could be found rubbing shoulders here at the Tower. All doing their part to further the illusory pipe dream of rebuilding the past atop its own desiccated corpse.

And then something terrible had happened, which resulted in Cayde-6 becoming the new Hunter Vanguard of the Tower. Supposedly he was meant to represent all the Hunters scattered throughout the system, serving as liaison from them to the Speaker, Conclave, and the other Vanguards. He put out the call, asking all the most far flung members of the Hunter diaspora to leave the wild and visit the Tower at least once in their lives

Djan Stykes answered, purely out of respect. Even on Mars Cayde-6 was known, and what thin social structure existed among those who'd spent their second lives amid red sand and ruins would've frowned upon any who rebuked his request. It was meant to be a one-time thing, a chance to discard the small arsenal of wasted weapons, armor, and artefacts she'd amassed over the years in exchange for a shiny new gun she could dirty up.

She hadn't anticipated Ghost enjoying the experience so much.

He disappeared for days, leaving her stranded amid the sea of bodies. He returned only reluctantly, apologizing for running off only after a vicious, screaming fight. After that he became insufferable, belligerent almost, if she went more than a few decades without a trip to the Tower.

In truth it would have been nothing for her to ignore Ghost's wishes. She and her companion had never stood on the best of terms. Both were known to spends months in utter silence, ignoring each other as well as two beings bonded at the soul could ignore one another. The fact of it was that for all his power Ghost to do nothing but talk when it came to Djan, and was totally at her mercy when it came to where they would go.

But, sometimes, she did feel sorry for him. It must be torture she knew, having so vast an intellect and such incredible power and being forced to waste it traversing rock and rusted metal for years on end. All because, so very long ago, he'd chosen wrong.

And so, if nothing else, she would give Ghost his trips, his chance to be among others of his kind, to analyze technology, human technology, that wasn't degrading or falling apart. That was advancing and evolving all the time, engaged in the wonderful process of restoration. All, of course, beneath the shadow of his revered maker.

It was on one of those trips that Djan Stykes found the old freighter, furnished its insides, and made it hers.

It was her oasis in the desert, her safe house in a foreign, inhospitable land.

A place where she could drink without Ghost wittering at her.

It had been her own well-kept secret for many years until one night, days after what may very well have been her last trip home, when she found herself sharing it with two others.

One was Seriy, what she supposed you'd call the leader of the little ragtag group she'd found herself a part of. She knew that to the Tower they were classified as a fireteam, but personally Djan found that term a little too formal for her liking. More like a couple of dolts who's ship gave out on the wrong end of the Exclusion Zone, and the crazy native who'd saved their asses.

Regardless, once shit had really started hitting the fan the big cerulean Titan had been the one they'd all turned to. Even Djan found herself deferring to him, trusting in his unflappable calm to see them through the most dire of situations.

Djan held a quiet respect for the man, even if she'd never admit it. She'd always viewed Titans as the soldiers of a civilized world, masters of the battlefield only with the resources of the Tower and the City at their back, feeding them their strength. Seriy however had stood as a bulwark among conditions that would have broken even veteran Hunters, spending nearly two years in the wild with Djan and Sky-8 as they fought their way out from deep within the Exclusion Zone.

Not that you'd know it by looking at him now. His blue skin was tinged with a grey blush as he fought to keep his words from slurring, throwing sloppy obscenities at the Warlock across the table.

Djan hadn't met Rolund until recently, their respective fireteams only coming to a reluctant truce as things on Mars began to really heat up. She had, however, heard quite a bit about him. Depending on who you asked he was either an ancient, all-powerful sage or an ancient, all-powerful sanctimonious asshole.

Either way everyone agreed he was really fucking old. Regardless of how young he looked.

He was closer to the edge than Seriy, having been loose on something already when he'd taken up Djans offer, but he was still in enough of his own right mind to argue with whoever would listen.

The problem was that Rolund wanted to go to the moon.

Seriy said he didn't see any reason to go to the moon.

Rolund replied with, "Of course you don't see any reason. I don't expect a muscle bound blue child to understand the gravity of the situation, rather, I expect him to trust in the judgment of his betters. And right now those betters say we must turn to the moon! Have recent events totally blinded you to the horrors reported there only a few short months ago?"

"That matter was settled. The Hive have been quiet since, and once they start stirring people, the right people, will be sent to investigate."

"How can you say that? You've seen the shrines, heard Its name whispered through the halls of the Hellmouth. For god's sake boy, you saw the shard! What they did to it, with it! How can you be so stupid, so short-sighted, as to focus on anything else now that the Vex have been pushed back?"

"Your own fireteam leader said that the City should be our priority now, that the Fallen have been mobilizing forces too close to the Wall. And I'm more inclined to agree with him than some crazed Warlock who wants to run off and live with the fucking Hive."

Djan could see Rolund tense at that barb. It was a sore spot for most Warlocks, the admittedly unfair comparison people drew between them and Hive wizards. It was a low blow, Djan thought, though to his credit Rolund didn't rise to the bait.

His just sighed. "Seriy. You and I both know Red-13 is somewhat, biased, in this matter. He'll chase the ghost of the Fallen war machine to the dark side of the world to satisfy his obsession. Surely you must see this?"

"As though you don't have any biases of your own. Better to throw us at the Hive than your pitiful, noble fucking Fallen yes?"

And that's when the whole thing just devolved into slurred screaming and spitting, drink, anger, and Seriys willingness to cross too many lines finally taking over. She felt no pity for Rolund on that count though; his fascination with the Fallen really was a bit too extreme for her liking.

Not that he was wrong about Red either. No one would've brought that particular quirk of Rolunds up with Red in the room. And Rolund wouldn't have dared second guess his decision to his face.

Don't get her wrong though, she liked Red. She just thought it was a shame that no one realized that the psychotic, irrational hatred that kept him on Earth was the same psychotic, irrational hatred pulling Rolund towards the Moon. Maybe they could bond over it, or something?

Everyone had their own suggestions on what the newly formed supergroup should do now it seemed, and none of them had anything to do with going back to Mars. Maybe that was why no one had asked her what they should do. Maybe they were scared that's what she'd suggest.

She wondered how the exo half of the team was doing. She didn't see any point in trying to gather them in the cargo hold too; poor bastards didn't have the luxury of drinking away their memories. Had to actually talk the shit out, like adults. Though to be fair, the drink and forget method didn't seem to be working for her at the present moment.

Red and Sky were having themselves a little powwow most likely, waxing philosophical in their own little nest they didn't know she knew about. Sky-8 was a sensible girl; if anyone was going to talk sense into Red-13 it'd be her. Assuming she wasn't jumping on the stay-at-home bandwagon like everyone else.

And who the fuck even knew where Seven had crawled off to. She'd heard from Red and Rolund that the enigmatic Hunter made himself just as scarce as she did at the Tower, slinking off to hide in a hole somewhere until it was time to leave. Maybe she could track him down, maybe she couldn't, but either way it'd be a waste of time. She doubted he had any interest in what the others thought; he'd come and go as he pleased, content to offer zero input whatsoever. Perhaps he'd fall in with Red, or perhaps he'd fuck off into the Void. All that was certain was that he wouldn't give anyone any heads up about what he was doing until he'd actually done it.

Rolund and Seriy were certainly good and drunk now, on the verge of coming to blows over things they wouldn't even remember in a few hours without help from their ghosts. Djan however was far from being anywhere near reasonably intoxicated.

And they were drinking up all her reserves.

Djan Stykes finished what little she had left before leaving her nest, abandoning it to her drunken leader and methuselah-the-man-child.

She was far too sober, and their bickering had given her a headache.

She needed some relief.

She went looking for Red.

Ccc

"I worry about her."

"You worry about everyone."

"Well, I _especially _worry about her."

Red-13 and Sky-8 sat at the edge of a small alcove carved into the side of the Tower, practically hidden right above a thin catwalk used by maintenance crews. Beyond them stretched the illuminated expanse of the City, its glare dimming any stars they might have seen that night. Not that it mattered too much though; they had a far more majestic view of the Traveler, its marred white surface illuminated by huge, focused spotlights stationed below it.

The very face of God, to some.

"You realize she's actually bragged about killing herself before?" Sky-8 pointed out. "Alcohol poisoning. Claims to have actually drunk herself to death, on two separate occasions!"

She sighed, shaking her head. "That poor, long-suffering ghost."

Red-13 responded without averting his gaze, head still facing the Traveler. Sky-8 assumed he was looking at it, though she couldn't be absolutely certain; a thin blast shield covered about three quarters of his face. How he saw past it was still something of a mystery.

"Djan's a big girl. She can take care of herself."

"That's not what I meant."

Red-13 just grunted in reply, an indication that he was done discussing the subject and would not be moved back onto it.

Sky-8 sighed. It was like talking to a wall sometimes. He been just as taciturn when she'd broached the topic of leaving Earth, refusing to say or do anything other than acknowledge that she'd spoken. It was a rather annoying tendency she thought, retreating behind walls the moment anything you didn't like reared its head. Childish, even.

They were very tall walls though. Strong too, nigh unmovable. She supposed it was just one more thing Red-13 could get away with, by sheer virtue of his incredible power. Few dared to try and sway him once he was set on his course. Others, like Sky-8, just didn't bother with it anymore. Some causes were just lost.

Red-13, in typical fashion, changed the subject. "Besides, I don't ever hear you wittering about Seven, and you claim he's just as potentially unreliable."

"Seven doesn't have the excuse of a century of relative isolation on Mars. There isn't anything we can do about him. And you, for better or worse, seem to trust him explicitly. Or in his loyalty to you, at any rate."

Red-13 grunted.

Sky-8 turned to him, grabbing onto his wrist. For the first time he averted his gaze from the skyline to face her.

"Tell me Red-13. Do you believe this team has a future ahead of it?"

"…no."

What parts of Sky-8s face could move arrayed themselves into an expression of surprise. "Really? But I thought…"

"Seriy's burnt himself out. He's tired, worn. He'll follow me here, for a while at least, but he'll bounce back sooner or later. When he does him and Djan and probably you will go back to Mars, looking for shadows to chase. Rolund will either fall in line, like he always has, or head off to the Moon alone and get himself killed. He's a non-entity either way."

"…and Seven?"

"He'll be here, when he's here."

She let go of his wrist. He averted his gaze back to the skyline.

"I think you are wrong" she said. "Or, rather, I hope you're wrong. I believe we have great potential together, the six of us. I think we could do great things."

"It was an alliance of necessity. The three of us would never have survived the raid on the Black Garden alone, and the three of you never would have made it off Mars without us. Not before the Cabal steamrolled over you at any rate. That need is gone, and with it our partnership."

"You sound just like the Speaker right now."

A strange sound emanated from Red-13's throat, as though he were about to give one of his dismissive grunts but caught himself halfway through and changed his mind.

"…How so?"

"You talk as though we'd won."

Ccc

She found him in a dark maintenance corridor, one leading away from his and Sky's little alcove.

Something in her look must have given her away, because he seemed to know immediately what she was there for. He didn't bother with talk this time, getting straight down to business instead.

Good. He was learning.

Suddenly her back was against the wall, several tons of sentient metal towering over her. She felt his hand cup her between her legs, pulling up so that she had to stand on her tip toes. One hand went up caress the counters of his faceplate, it and her hand illuminated by the soft red glow burning out of his mouth and jaw. Her fingers traced the red paint splattered across the front. She found it helped speed things up when she pretended it really was blood, instead of painted imitation.

Not that she would need that tonight. She felt very hot all of the sudden.

And apparently so did he, strangely enough.

She wasn't sure, but she thought he seemed a little rattled, a little distressed. Like he was having just about as successful an evening as her. Good. She liked the idea that he might be able to blow a little steam off with this too, in one way or another.

She liked being able to reciprocate.

His grip tightened. She parted her legs, swinging them up and around to wrap around his waist.

His forehead came to rest against hers.

She kissed him.

Ccc

Deep beneath the Tower, Seven peered out from the darkness.

He watched the jump suited worker slowly making his way through the dimly lit room, one of several sub-basements, careful not to trip over any of the thick cables feeding the massive structure above them. He was looking to and fro, constantly checking behind himself. Nervous clearly, yet restrained, evidently comfortable in his environment. His stance was relaxed. He was apparently not too far out of his element.

Seven willed Ghost to release the lights in his head, two dim white orbs sparking into existence. The man, to his credit, did not panic when glowing eyes suddenly appeared out of the darkness. Seven was quietly impressed, albeit a little disappointed as well. He hoped to make the man panic just a little.

Seven and the man locked eyes.

Seven walked towards him as the man reached into his tool bag, retrieving a little white cube.


End file.
